


The Refuge We Do Not Deserve

by powerfulowl (StuckyFlangst)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amputee Bucky Barnes, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Blood and Injury, Blow Jobs, Bottom Bucky Barnes, But maybe SHIELD is still becoming evil, Canon Divergence - No Hydra because Peggy, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Dom Drop, Face-Fucking, Lonely Steve Rogers, M/M, Modern Bucky Barnes, POV Bucky Barnes, POV Steve Rogers, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Past Steve Rogers/Brock Rumlow - Freeform, SHIELD Agent Bucky Barnes, Smut, Spanking, Steve would like to give more aftercare, Top Drop, Top Steve Rogers, Unsafe Sex, self-injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:39:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24088243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StuckyFlangst/pseuds/powerfulowl
Summary: ‘On your knees,’ Steve commanded, and Bucky dropped to the carpet.‘Here,’ Steve stepped his muscular thighs apart, still in his sweatpants. Bucky shuffled forward, hauled in by that rich voice, those eyes, his cock hard now, bobbing as he moved. He felt his almost perpetual blush heating his cheeks again.‘So pretty,’ Steve whispered as Bucky reach him. Bucky moaned again, eyes flickering, biting his lip, as he felt Steve’s thighs close around him.****Agent Bucky Barnes isn't sure that SHIELD is the organization he signed up for. The Data and Analytics team has a boring name but some pretty terrible plans. Captain America doesn't seem to approve. Bucky may or may not have a history with fantasies of Captain America, so how can he resist when Steve Rogers smirks at him?Steve Rogers has some similar issues with SHIELD, but nobody to talk to about his concerns. He's pretty alone in the future, and he's always been kind of angry and difficult. He could talk to Bucky Barnes, who seems to share those concerns. Or he could seduce him.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 46
Kudos: 301





	1. A Very Important Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> Bucky and Steve have unprotected sex because serum etc, but they don't discuss this or talk about it at all. Everything else should be safe and consensual, but let me know if I need to tag anything else.
> 
> EDIT: I think there are a few other things I should mention. There is reference (with some semi-explicit references) of past Brock/Steve in Chapter 2. But in this story Brock is like, not really evil because of #nohyrdrabecausePeggy. Also there is some scenes where Steve injures himself because of feelings.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘On your knees,’ Steve commanded, and Bucky dropped to the carpet.
> 
> ‘Here,’ Steve stepped his muscular thighs apart, still in his sweatpants. Bucky shuffled forward, hauled in by that rich voice, those eyes, his cock hard now, bobbing as he moved. He felt his almost perpetual blush heating his cheeks again.
> 
> ‘So pretty,’ Steve whispered as Bucky reach him. Bucky moaned again, eyes flickering, biting his lip, as he felt Steve’s thighs close around him.
> 
> ****
> 
> Agent Bucky Barnes isn't sure that SHIELD is the organization he signed up for. The Data and Analytics team has a boring name but some pretty terrible plans. Captain America doesn't seem to approve. Bucky may or may not have a history with fantasies of Captain America, so how can he resist when Steve Rogers smirks at him?
> 
> Steve Rogers has some similar issues with SHIELD, but nobody to talk to about his concerns. He's pretty alone in the future, and he's always been kind of angry and difficult. He could talk to Bucky Barnes, who seems to share those concerns. Or he could seduce him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Steve have unprotected sex because serum etc, but they don't discuss this or talk about it at all. Everything else should be safe and consensual, but let me know if I need to tag anything else. 
> 
> EDIT: Steve injures himself a couple of times because feelings, but it's not intentional self harm. Also there is a reference to past Brock Rumlow/Steve Rogers in Chapter 2, if that is a squick for you.

Bucky followed Agent Hill into the room and then pulled up sharply. This looked like a really important meeting, and he was not convinced he should be here.

 _Captain America_ was lounging at the end of the table. _Lounging_. Bucky had always thought Captain America would only sit like he did in the press conferences, ramrod straight and with a serious frown. But no, he was _lounging_ with a serious frown.

‘Come on Barnes,’ Hill motioned with her head.

‘Why am I here?’ he whispered as she strode forward. ‘This is an important meeting. _Captain America_ is here.’

Hill just snorted softly and strode on to the head of the table.

The Captain caught sight of her and unfolded his massive bulk and held out his hand.

‘Agent Hill.’ He didn’t smile, but the frown cleared a little.

‘Captain Rogers,’ Agent Hill nodded and took is hand. ‘This is Agent Barnes.’

Bucky took the enormous, warm, surprisingly soft… _Fuck Barnes hold it together_ … hand and nodded. ‘Captain,’ he managed to say (squeak, say, whatever).

The Captain’s eyes narrowed slightly, ‘Agent Barnes’. Was that a twinkle in those bright blue eyes? Did the flicker up and down Bucky’s body? Bucky was heating up slightly.

_Don’t be an idiot, it’s Captain fucking America and you’re a one-armed junior agent._

‘Agent Barnes is shadowing me at the moment, keeping me organised.’ Agent Hill sat, leaving a chair empty to her right between her and the Captain. That was clearly a joke – Maria Hill didn’t need anyone to keep her organised. Bucky was in fact a bit confused about why he was shadowing her. She had just rocked up to his desk one day and told him that he was her shadow now, and he had been following her around like a large, muscular, one-armed duckling for the past two months.

Bucky sat to her left. He pulled out his laptop and touched his ponytail, just to check, you know, that it was still intact and hadn’t collapsed under the stress of meeting Captain America, like Bucky had. At least he looked pretty nice in his navy suit and paisley lilac shirt. Not that Captain America would be impressed by things like that.

The Captain sat too, inclining his head slightly, looking pretty good himself in one of those outfits the tactical teams wore all the time – tight t-shirts and pants with lots of pockets and places to attach things. Though why anyone else would wear one of those t-shirts while Captain America was bursting out of one with those beautiful tits and…. _Get hold of yourself Barnes._

Bucky Barnes had been many things in his life – Junior SHIELD Agent (Intelligence and Logistics), solider, Walmart shelf-stocker – and one of those things was a Captain America fan boy. He could bitch with the best of his colleagues about how it didn’t make any sense to call him Captain Rogers. Was he even in the Army anymore? Even if he was there’s no way he would just be a Captain. But at the end of the day, a part of his heart was still 14 years old jerking off to the Captain America poster on his bedroom wall, imagining those big hand (which he knew now were also warm and soft) holding him down and….

Bucky Barnes really needed not to pop a boner in this extremely important meeting. He scowled at his laptop and opened and closed a few windows and definitely did not try to look at Captain America without looking at Captain America. The Captain who now specifically seemed to be scowling at Director Fury entering the room.

Agent Hill was definitely laughing at him.

The meeting, as far as he could tell, was some sort of executive meeting where the heads of the different departments reported to the Director, who yelled at them. Why precisely Captain America was there was unclear. He would ask Hill later. Maybe to scowl at everyone and make them question whether what they were doing was sufficiently patriotic?

The head of Tactics and Interventions (shooting people and blowing things up), Agent Rumlow, droned on about increasing the numbers of Strike Teams, and new equipment, and the need to balance covert and overt operations. Bucky wrinkled his nose, and absolutely did not notice that the Captain’s frown was getting even deeper. The man is lucky he’s got the serum or his face would be permanently carved with huge frown wrinkles. His handsome, chiselled face that looked like it would still be soft to the touch.

Uggh. Fortunately Agent Rumlow was sitting down. Director Fury was yelling about something, but it seemed more for show than anything.

Then the head of Data and Analytics stood up – a bland man in a grey suit with watery eyes – and began to explain how they had designed a computer program that analyses all the available data about every person in the United States and tells you whether they have (or will) commit a treasonous or socially disruptive crime.

Bucky choked a little.

‘Agent Barnes?’ Director Fury swivelled towards him. ‘Are you okay?’ Bucky forgot to breathe for several moments, unsure whether it’s the presentation or Director Fury’s single, piercing eye that’s making him seize up. Then he caught sight of Captain America, sitting there, thunderous, lounging, clenching his fists, making him think about whether he was sufficiently committed to the ideals of freedom and justice.

‘It just seems like a massive, unwarranted invasion of privacy, which holds people to account for things that they haven’t done yet, and therefore may not do, with vague criteria as to what the nature of the supposed offence even is. Like, what’s _socially disruptive_? What does that even mean? Who decides?’

Bucky was vaguely aware that the room was silent, with all eyes in the room fixed on him, including Fury’s always murderously unreadable one.

The head of Data and Analytics, whose name was so unremarkable Bucky couldn’t recall it despite his close involvement with this terrifying proposal, piped up. ‘We’re not charging them with anything though, just identifying them.’

Bucky stared at him for a moment, like does this guy really exist and has he really never watched a single movie, or like, read a history book, or any book.

‘Yeah, because just identifying people is so often just a harmless step that never goes in further,’ Bucky said.

Head of Data and Analytics blinked.

‘This is very interesting Agent,’ Fury nodded to the head of Data and Analytics, clearly also forgetting his name. ‘Very interesting.’

Buck stared at Fury. _Now_ he’s not yelling? _Now_ it’s ‘interesting’?

‘Any other comments?’ Fury looked around, but the rest of the room was silent. Hill had her arms crossed and was leaning back. Whoops. Bucky wasn’t really meant to talk. Did she tell him that?

The silence continued, and everyone looked pretty comfortable with this massive expansion of state power, and Bucky’s stump was itching which it does when he gets angry or uncomfortable, and at that exact moment both of those setting were turned up to eleven so it was burning and….

Captain America _growled._ Bucky’s eyes flicked over to him, and he wasn’t lounging anymore he was _coiling_ , like a massive, muscular lion. Bucky really needed not to get a hard on right now.

‘In this whole room there is _one person_ , a _junior agent_ who’s prepared to raise so much as a peep about this _fucking travesty_ of a proposal.’ The Captain’s teeth were clenched and his (glowing, cornflower blue) eyes were narrowed.

Everyone looked shocked, but it might just be because Captain America said fucking.

‘And you approved this project,’ he turned to Fury, that voice that made a thousand inspiring speeches stony and cold. ‘What is this organisation becoming.’

‘It’s just modern technology Captain,’ said Agent Rumlow. ‘It’s still the same war, just a different way of fighting.’

Did that guy just patronise Captain America? Yes he did.

The Captain stared at Rumlow until the Agent lowered his eyes, a pissy expression on his face. The Captain nodded once at Bucky (like right at him with a sort of approving glower) and exited the room.

Later, as everyone was leaving, they kept looking at Bucky, undecided whether he had ruined his career by getting on Fury’s bad side, or made it by getting on Captain America’s good side.

In the corridor Hill slapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘You did good Barnes.’

Bucky had no idea what the fuck was going on.

\-----

Bucky was still overseas when Captain America was found in the ice. It was news even in the mountains of Afghanistan. Bucky heard it from a local and they both stared at the pictures in the weeks old papers of a massive blond man sitting ramrod straight at a press conference in a dress uniform they must have made specially for him, with a SHIELD logo on the lapel.

Looking at that stern face, Bucky felt the familiar shame stirring in his chest. That face that had made him dream of glory in service to his country would now look over this shitshow of a way, that never ended and see only the horror and the shame of it.

Bucky didn’t even hear about the aliens until much later, in a hospital bed in DC, from a chatty nurse who was trying to update him on the missing three years of his life.

‘So what did he do after the aliens,’ Bucky asked. ‘Did he join up with Iron Man and form a superhero squad.’

Josh, the chatty nurse, shrugged. ‘Sort of but not really. SHIELD calls them The Avengers but really they never see each other, except when there’s some sort of massive, supernormal or extraterrestrial threat to the planet, and even then Nick Fury mostly seems to keep them apart. The Captain mostly works for SHIELD, but no one really knows what he does. He doesn’t say much, mostly just frowns and looks disappointed in everyone.’

‘It musta been hard,’ Bucky mused, ‘Coming back and everyone you know is dead. Except Peggy Carter’s still alive yeah? But she’s real old now.’

Josh nodded. ‘Yeah, I’ve heard from my cousin who works in the nursing home where she lives that he visits her a lot, and talks to her, but she doesn’t remember to well now.’

Bucky felt sad. It was hard losing three years of your life, and your arm, and a fair portion of your sanity, but at least his parents were still alive, and Becca, and he’d never have to fight again.

\-----

The next time Bucky saw Captain America was in the lift. The lifts in the SHIELD building seemed to take a really long time to go up and down, particularly when you were in there with a national icon who you absolutely did not jerk off to thinking about in the shower that morning.

The Captain nodded to him as he stepped into the lift. ‘Agent Barnes.’

‘Captain Rogers,’ Bucky croaked out.

And then it happened. The Captain _smiled_. And not a bland, we agreed in that meeting that one time we met smile. It was more a _dirty, knowing_ smile. 

Bucky blushed. Undeniably, rosily. His stump itched. His pants were too tight. The Captain _smirked._

‘Please, call me Steve.’ His voice was rich, like treacle, but authoritative. Bucky was pretty sure he would do anything _Steve_ told him to immediately, willingly. ‘I’m not in the army anymore.’

The lift dinged and Bucky stood there with his mouth slightly open.

‘Your floor?’ Steve gestured at the doors and held his hand out to stop them closing.

Bucky nodded and ran, and he could swear he heard a genuine, bona fide chuckle behind him.

\----

Back in the 1970s, Peggy Carter and Howard Stark uncovered a secret conspiracy within SHIELD. It turned out that some of the Nazi scientists recruited by the US Government to work for the SHIELD science division were not just regular Nazis, they were Hydra Nazis. And they were still Hydra (and probably still Nazis).

Bucky had watched old footage of Peggy Carter giving her famous speech, her eyes shining with tears as she said, voice still strong, ‘Steve Rogers gave his life for this country, that I have sworn allegiance to as an immigrant. But this country betrayed him, betrayed all of us, when it allowed these men refuge here; refuge which they did not deserve.’

Bucky thought about that as he read through the files that Hill dumped on him, locking him into one of the solitary confinement rooms with them.

He wondered what Steve Rogers was doing now.

After talking to Josh he had read more about the Captain’s return, some awkward interviews where he talked about using the internet and how great vaccinations were. He seemed to be on a tight leash though. Bucky had watched some footage of interviews where people asked the Captain about the civil rights movement, or gay marriage, or religious freedom, and he’d open his mouth to answer and a handler would always descend, shutting him down.

A lot of people claimed it was because he had reactionary, old-fashioned views and they couldn’t let him say anything controversial, but Bucky couldn’t find anything to confirm that. Mostly people had decided he was pretty boring, and let him be.

As superheroes went, Tony Stark seemed more exciting to the world.

Bucky ran his hand over the files, and wondered what Captain America would think of all this.

\-----

Bucky was sitting up at the bar of his favourite dive bar drinking his beer, paperback held open with a water glass. It was times like these where maybe, maybe he reconsidered a little the offer of one of the fancy new Stark prosthetic arms. Then he could hold his beer and his book at the same time.

He turned it down because, despite Josh explaining to him at length that Tony Stark really had given up weapons manufacturing, he still suspected that if someone gave him a fancy new hi tech arm, someone else (like the US Government) would make him fight with it again.

Though not fighting hadn’t worked out super well for him, given he was to be working for an organisation that while definitely purged of Hydra and Nazis, seemed to have found its own road back to fascism. 

‘Watcha reading?’ asked a voice like dark maple syrup, that one that comes from the late tapping of the tree.

Bucky jerked and would have spilt both beer and water if huge deft hands hadn’t stilled both glasses. He swallowed and raised his eyes from the glorious, rounded pectoral muscles encased in a tight blue t-shirt, past a pale clavicle with a little dip that looked made for licking, to a sharp jaw with a hint of golden-brown stubble and two crinkling blue eyes.

‘Ummm,’ Bucky reviewed the last 30 seconds and eventually recalled the question. ‘Minority report. It’s a short story about a world where people are arrested for crimes before they commit them.’

‘Huh,’ Steve raised an eyebrow. ‘No one told me to read that one.’

‘There’s a film too. But the story’s better.’

‘Is it now?’ Bucky blushed for absolutely no reason at all as Steve smirked at him.

Who the fuck is Steve Rogers? What is that smirk? Bucky has no idea. You look at a poster of a man for 10 years, you read his biographies, watch the film versions of his life, and suddenly he’s there and he’s warm and soft and… _Get yourself together_.

‘So you know I’m Steve, but what’s your name when you’re not an Agent?’

‘Bucky,’ he gasped out. ‘Short for James Buchanan.’

Steve laughed, just a nice, incidental laugh. ‘So Bucky,’ he placed his large, warm, soft, _strong_ hand on Bucky’s knee. He was wearing sweatpants and running shoes. Why was he even here? How was he here? How was he touching Bucky?

‘Would you like to come back to my place?’

‘Yes,’ Bucky nodded. ‘I would really like that.’

\-----

And so Bucky found himself being steered through Captain America’s apartment, removing his shoes in the hallway, walking through a warmly carpeted room with shelves with books spilling of them and an eclectic mix of paintings on the walls – some abstract, some realistic, all done by different people. 

Bucky politely accepted a glass of water and drank it down, staring at Steve, his heart pounding in his chest.

Steve had kept a hand on him the whole way home, steering him through the streets making gentle small talk. He had smiled so much and chuckled at Bucky’s stupid stories and incoherent garbling.

Bucky tried not to think too hard about how he had spent five minutes explaining his Phillip K. Dick rating system. _You see there’s top shelf Dick, which is like, the best Dick…._

Steve had asked, ‘What about Moby Dick?’ And Bucky had gaped at him. ‘That is the _best question_ Stevie.’

Oh fuck, he called Captain America Stevie. His heart pounded harder as Steve gazed at him, leaning against the kitchen bench.

‘Come on Bucky,’ Steve reached out a steady hand. ‘Let’s get you out of that head.’

Bucky put down his glass and allowed himself to be guided down the hall and up a flight of stairs. He felt himself leaning into Steve – all that warmth and solidity, that honey voice….

Steve paused before the bed and leaned down to him, and Bucky was tall but Steve was taller and Steve pressed his lips to Bucky’s, and everything was soft and warm. Steve’s tongue flicked through Bucky’s parted lips and Bucky sighed softly. Steve’s teeth bit down soft on Bucky’s bottom lip, then a little harder, then a little harder again, and Bucky moaned.

‘Bucky,’ Steve stepped back for a moment. Bucky chewed his lips, suddenly nervous. ‘Do you have a safe word?’

What the fuck? Captain America was asking for his safe word. ‘Ummm,’ Bucky blushed (not fucking Steve Rogers, he wasn’t blushing), ‘I just use Red, Yellow, Green, or for stop completely Indiana.’

‘Not a sexy place, hey?’ Steve smiled. ‘I’m good with that.’

Steve squeezed Bucky’s shoulders then sat on the bed, hand pressed to Bucky’s chest to keep him standing.

‘Undress.’ Bucky shuddered at the order, and his hands began to obey, tugging his sweater over his head from the back of the collar (a smooth move perfected under the supervision of Josh). Bucky’s breathing was rapid and ragged, his face burning and his cock stirring against his jeans.

Steve was sitting, relaxed, his hands on his knees, watching Bucky with a hint of a smile on his lips.

Bucky pulled his t-shirt off, baring his chest and… _shit_. He stopped, suddenly painfully aware of his scarred stump, the web of burns spreading across his left shoulder and chest. He stared at Steve, so huge and perfect and golden. Fuck, what was he doing.

Steve eyebrows moved, and Bucky was so sure he was going to frown, going to stand up and say sorry, this wasn’t such a good idea.

‘Good boy,’ Steve’s voice was husky and warm, ‘doing so good for me Buck.’

Relief washed over Bucky, warming him again. He wanted to keep being good for Steve, he could be so good for him. He hurried to flick his button open, and unzip his fly, eager now, not even caring if he looked sexy or not, just wanting to complete Steve’s order.

He tugged his jeans down and pulled off the left leg then the right, getting his socks at the same time. He looked through his hair, tumbling out of his ponytail, into Steve’s darkening eyes, rimmed with cornflower blue.

‘On your knees,’ Steve commanded, and Bucky dropped to the carpet. ‘Here,’ Steve stepped his muscular thighs apart, still in his sweatpants. Bucky shuffled forward, hauled in by that rich voice, those eyes, his cock hard now, bobbing as he moved. He felt his almost perpetual blush heating his cheeks again.

‘So pretty,’ Steve whispered as Bucky reached him. Bucky moaned again, eyes flickering, biting his lip, as he felt Steve’s thighs close around him. He felt so safe, all thoughts of the files, of Data and Analytics, Tactics and Intervention, Suppression and Prevention, driven from his mind. His whole skin itched for Steve’s hands, that were so soft and so strong, could hold him down, could….

‘Steve,’ he whispered, ‘please?’

Steve moved a hand to tug Bucky’s hair tie out and stroke through his hair. ‘Please what, sweetheart? What do you want?’ Bucky sighed at the feel of the hand in his hair, massaging, tugging a little.

‘Please Steve, I want you to,’ he shuddered gently, ‘just tell me….’ 

Steve hummed a little, and his grip tightened in Bucky’s hair. Bucky felt his hips rocking forward, his throbbing cock seeking some friction. Steve snapped Bucky’s head back, shaking a finger at him, face stern.

‘Don’t be impatient Bucky.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Bucky rasped, throat constricted, scalp smarting, his whole fucking body on fire with Steve’s voice, Steve’s hands.

And then Steve was reaching down into those sweatpants and pulling out his cock and it was long and thick and beautiful and curved and hard. It was hard for Bucky, who was naked while Steve was mostly dressed, and on his knees while Steve loomed above him, unsmiling, fist bunched in Bucky’s hair.

‘Please Steve, could I,’ Bucky lipped his lips, ‘Could you… my mouth.’ His voice was almost a whisper.

‘What’s that Bucky?’ Steve smirked, lazily jerking himself, pre-cum beading at the end of his uncut dick. ‘What do you want?’

‘I want to suck you,’ Bucky blurted, blushing again, almost crying from the embarrassment, the need.

Steve paused, cock in hand, considering. ‘Who’s in charge here Bucky?’ he asked, tilting his head to the side, still pulling at Bucky’s hair.

‘You are,’ whispered Bucky.

Steve nodded. ‘And I,’ he ran a finger around Bucky’s mouth, then pushed two fingers in, holding Bucky’s jaw with his thumb, ‘am going to fuck that pretty mouth until you choke.’ Bucky suckled at Steve’s fingers, moaning and nodding, tears gathering again in his throat. ‘Just tap my thigh twice if you want me to stop.’

Then Steve guided his pink, wet cock between Bucky’s lips. Bucky groaned and sucked at the tip, running his tongue along the slit, the soft underside. Steve tasted salty and sharp, one hand on the back of Bucky’s head, the other directing his cock deeper into Bucky’s mouth.

Bucky was lost. He was nothing but skin and sweat and fire. Steve’s cock was still filling him, stretching his mouth and his jaw. Now both hands were on the back of his head, pushing him down onto Steve until the tip of Steve’s cock hit the back of his throat and he gagged a little, taking a sobbing breath.

‘Sshhh,’ Steve stroked his cheek, ‘You can take it, pretty little mouth like yours, made for this aren’t you.’ Bucky tried to nod, moaning again, and opening his throat a little, sucking air in through his nose. He could feel drool pooling in his mouth. Then Steve drew back and he gasped a few times.

‘I’m going to fuck your mouth now, sugar.’ Steve grabbed the back of Bucky’s head and then thrust into his open throat, pushing in and withdrawing, Bucky’s throat burning, his hand pawing at Steve’s calf, holding him up, holding him to Steve. Steve was using him, fucking him, this was everything. 

Steve stopped, his cock pushed all the way down Bucky’s throat, Bucky’s nosed pressed into his golden brown thatch of pubic hair, tears spilling, whole body trembling and sweating. His jaw ached perfectly and his moaned around Steve, liquid and debased.

‘Fuck,’ Steve massaged his scalp then hauled him off, choking and coughing, strings of saliva dripping from his mouth. ‘So beautiful,’ Steve cooed. Bucky whined and shivered, his shoulders heaving, his jaw throbbing and scalp stinging. He gazed up at Steve through his damp lashes and met eyes full of heat and hunger. He wanted Steve to devour him, pull him apart with teeth and claws and leave him undone.

Steve swept Bucky up in his arms and threw him onto the bed. Bucky was aware again of his own swollen cock, untouched and leaking, and wiggled and moaned, pawing at the bed in an effort not to touch himself.

Steve slapped him hard and sudden on the side of the thigh. Bucky cried out, hips heaving up, and Steve slapped him again. Flames spread out from the spot and his dick seemed impossibly harder. He wiggled and moaned, wanting to obey, but also wanting those hands on him again, hurting him again. So much power in those hands, controlled and pulsing.

‘Behave, Bucky.’ Steve admonished, stripping off his t-shirt and slipping out of his sweatpants.

‘Sorry,’ Bucky sobbed out, fist grabbing at the sheets. Steve knelt over him, not touching Bucky, magnificent and powerful and dark-faced.

‘So impatient, Bucky, I’m disappointed.’ Steve shook his head, digging his fingers into Bucky’s red-marked skin.

‘No, no, I’m not impatient,’ Bucky squirmed and flailed, unmoored and desperate, wanting, wanting.

Then Steve reached down and flipped him over onto his stomach, pressing his chest into the bed, holding his arm behind his back, pressing his cock between Bucky’s thighs and laying his chest along Bucky’s back.

‘Hush,’ Steve said, voice low and rough. Bucky stopped the low moan he hadn’t known he was making, and felt his whole body still, trembling but unmoving like the eye of a storm.

Steve straightened again, pulling away slightly, still holding onto Bucky’s hand. 

‘Now you can make a sound if you like,’ and Steve’s open palm whacked down onto Bucky’s right ass cheek, ripping a cry from his chest. 

Steve didn’t make him count, just smacked him, harder each time, changing from right to left and back, the back of his hand on the back of Bucky’s thighs, his palm smacking against Bucky’s balls, making him scream and sob. His skin was burning hot, snot and tears soaking the sheets.

‘So pretty,’ Steve whispered, ‘Such a pretty ass, all pink for me. You like that, sugar, you like when I hurt you?’ Bucky nodded and writhed, face heating as Steve paused to knead his bruised cheeks, pulling them apart to expose his hole, which he could feel fluttering and aching.

‘No one hurts me like you Steve, no one can,’ Bucky whispered into the mattress, and heard Steve take a sharp breath, squeezing harder into his bruised flesh, pulling a guttural cry from Bucky.

Then Steve rained down three hard blows across the centre of his parted cheeks and Bucky screamed, imagining Steve using all the force of his enhanced body, breaking Bucky completely, ruining him.

Steve grabbed the base of Bucky’s cock and squeezed, ‘Not yet honey, not until I say.’ And Bucky sobbed, confused, realising he had almost come without even rubbing himself against the sheets.

Suddenly Steve was pushing a huge, lubed finger into his hole, not quickly, but not slow enough to stop a burn that made Bucky groan again, wiggling and grinding, not sure whether to pull away or push back. Steve put his other hand on Bucky’s shoulders and pressed down, twisting his arm up between his shoulder blades.

Steve pushed his finger in and out, then added another, scissoring and thrusting and then curling them to brush Bucky’s prostate. Bucky screamed again, hoarsely this time, his whole body soaked in sweat and tears. Could you cry from all your pores? Maybe you could when Steve Rogers was fucking you.

Bucky barely registered the third finger. He was begging again, for Steve’s cock, for his cum in Bucky’s hole, for Steve to wreck Bucky forever, for everyone.

And finally after a thousand years had passed he felt Steve’s cock pressing against his hole and he garbled _yes Stevie please please_ and Steve grabbed Bucky’s hips and thrust in one perfect movement, stretching him and breaking him and filling him with fire.

Then Steve was pulling back and thrusting in, murmuring ‘ _pretty, beautiful, take my cock so well, so tight, you like this just for me’_. And yes, Bucky was just like this for Steve. Everything hurt and nothing hurt because Steve’s hands were on him, holding him, and Bucky could say nothing except his name again and again.

Then Steve was hauling Bucky up and into his lap, still fucking up into Bucky’s abused and burning asshole, pressing Bucky’s back to his chest and reaching round and grabbing Bucky’s cock.

And his was going to die, right here in Steve Rogers’ lap, as Steve jerked him hard and rough and bounced him like a doll on his cock.

‘Please Steve please,’ Bucky reached behind and feebly stroked at Steve’s cheek. Steve nuzzled into Bucky’s neck sucking and licking, reaching his other hand to roll Bucky’s left nipple between his fingers.

‘You wanna come sweetheart?’ Steve whispered.

‘Please Steve, please…’ Bucky’s breath was punched out of him each time Steve lifted him and impaled him again on Steve’s cock, sparks shooting from his guts to his fingertips to his toes every time.

‘Come then baby,’ and Steve bit down on Bucky’s neck as he wrenched his nipple and fucked up into him, impossibly deep. And Bucky came in a great quivering crash, spasming around Steve’s cock, shooting streaks of white across his thighs and the bed, completely dissolved into screaming nerves and pounding blood. He must be crying and bleeding and dying right now.

‘Oh fuck Bucky,’ and for the first time Steve’s voice was breaking as he gave a few final violent thrusts and filled Bucky’s ass, for what felt like eternity and like no time at all.

Then Steve was lowering them both to the bed, soothing Bucky with small kisses and gentle strokes. Bucky cried out pitifully when his great warm presence left for what felt like hours, but must have only been minutes after which he returned with a bottle of icy water and a warm wash cloth.

Bucky hummed happily as Steve fed him sips of water and carefully wiped the sweat and tears and cum off his body and his face, then folded him in warm arms and a clean blanket, whispering sweet nothings in his ear.

‘So good for me, so perfect, so strong to take me so well, so soft.’

‘You’re so soft,’ Bucky muttered, then drifted off.

\-----

He woke, not sure how much later, still wrapped up in Steve Rogers and his blanket.

 _Captain America_. Fuck. What was he doing? His eyes flew open and he started up. Steve blinked at him, clearly not asleep. The light was still on.

‘Ummm,’ Bucky didn’t really know what the etiquette was after defiling (being defiled by?) a national icon.

‘You doing okay?’ Steve asked. ‘I could rub something on your bruises?’

Bucky stared at him, lounging back on the pillows, his blond hair spiked every which way and his blue eyes (cornflower blue) crinkling, in either amusement or concern.

‘I think I need to go, actually,’ Bucky said, looking around slightly wildly. He hadn’t really taken the room in before. It was nice. The massive California King didn’t fill the room. There was space for shelves piled with books, and some paintings on the wall – New York street scenes and people. They all looked similar in style.

There was a chair with a quilt over the back, which was just too much homespun goodness for Bucky’s poor heart at the moment.

‘Oh, okay.’ Steve didn’t exactly frown, but the crinkles went away, and his face smoothed somehow. Bucky had seen it do that before during press conferences or awkward media interviews.

Steve helped Bucky extract himself from the blanket (which may or may not have been hand crocheted Bucky definitely wasn’t checking) and pulled on his sweatpants and t-shirt again. He gathered up Bucky’s clothes and gestured down the hall. 

‘You can shower if you like. There’s a clean towel on the rack.’

Bucky grabbed his clothes and pulled them on, mumbling about how he didn’t have time he had to get home.

Steve nodded, picked up Bucky’s hair tie off the floor and handed it to him, and left the room. Bucky heard him going down the stairs and moving about in the kitchen.

 _What are you doing Barnes?_ And he didn’t know. He had just had the most amazing sex of his life with Captain America ( _Steve Rogers_ ), who didn’t know anything about Bucky and what he’d done with his life and what he might be about to do, and the Captain ( _Steve_ ) had said a bunch of stuff he certainly didn’t mean ( _pretty, beautiful, sugar, sweetheart, good for me_ ) and Bucky just needed to go now in case he died.

So Bucky went downstairs and Steve smiled at him in that way that said we fucked and it was good but I guess we won’t acknowledge it in the unlikely event we happen to be in the same important meeting again. And Bucky smiled too and said thanks and bye and put on his shoes and went home.

At home he showered, and thought about the files again, and wondered what Captain America knew about the whole thing, and why on earth Steve Rogers had been in that bar wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt in the first place, and imagining him finding a clean towel for Bucky and putting it on the rack and smoothing it down with those big, soft hands that were so harsh and so tender.


	2. What We Were Made For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last time Bucky had undressed for him in the subdued light of his bedroom. Here the sun still streamed in though the windows and Steve felt a rare moment of inhabiting his own huge physical presence, unfolding under the heat of the half-fearful desire in Bucky’s eyes.
> 
> ‘Come here Bucky.’ Steve spread his legs, aware of his erection straining against the soft cotton, his dick already leaking,
> 
> Bucky stumbled forward, eyes still fixed on Steve, already glassy.
> 
> Steve put his hands on Bucky’s shoulders for a moment, feeling how the left was still just as firm and full as the right.
> 
> ‘We all good here Buck?’ Steve asked, voice rumbling in his chest as he exercised his last reserve of control.
> 
> ‘Yeah, yeah Stevie, all green here,’ Bucky murmured, eyes roaming across Steve’s face, and down across his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who left kudos and of course to the ever beloved commenters. I'm trying for weekly updates, so the final chapter should be up next week. Note a few updates to the tags.

When Bucky Barnes once again trailed in behind Agent Hill, almost six foot of muscle and a delightful hint of squishy belly and _oh Christ_ a bun today wrapped in a grey pinstripe suit with a pink shirt and a black tie with his sleeve left sleeve neatly pinned, Steve Rogers thought he might expire right there and then.

He had survived a world war, being frozen for almost seventy years, the Great Depression, and a wide range of illnesses at a time when medical care was pretty limited, but he was not sure he could survive Bucky Barnes attending almost every meeting Steve went to for much longer.

It was not just the tendrils of dark hair that would caress the back of Bucky’s neck as he scowled at his laptop and remind Steve of how that hair felt clamped in his fist, it was not just how every time Bucky lowered his eyes those lashes would tremble and Steve would remember in fucking technicolour what they looked like wet with tears, or how whenever Bucky snapped and berated someone Steve would hear the Dolby surround echo of that same deep, husky voice cracking and pleading _please, Stevie_.

And Steve’s palms would tingle with the need to tug that sound out of him again, draw the blood to the surface of that golden skin; his teeth would ache to sink into the ridge of that strong collarbone; his tongue would yearn for the taste of three flavours of salt from blood and sweat and tears.

But that wasn’t why Buck Barnes was going to finally destroy Steve Rogers.

‘While there is a constitutional ban on arbitrary detention, in this case the detention would not be arbitrary because it would be based on a presumption that the person would only have opposed the detention if they in fact knew that they had committed some offence and therefore….’ The woman speaking from the Legal Department was so perfectly put together than Steve’s eyes sort of slid off her polished face, her perfect hair, her black suit, her clipped tones.

Steve frowned, trying to unpick the logic. He really hated the meetings with the legal department. Somehow his moral compass, when presented with the law, could no longer tell which way was north.

Agent Hill was sitting there silently with her arms crossed, eyes slightly narrowed. Steve watched in fascination as a flush (in memory the curves of that chest pink and shining) rose up Bucky’s neck and dusted his cheekbones (chiselled and glistening with salt of tears and salt of sweat).

‘So, you’ll detain people whatever they do?’ Bucky narrowed his eyes.

And Steve’s fists clenched a little in sympathy with the clenching of his heart, because this, this was why Bucky Barnes was going to be the death of him.

‘Of course not,’ the woman shook her head and smiled a patronising smile. ‘Because if the person has not committed an offence, or is not thinking of committing an offence, or may not possibly commit an offence in the future then SHIELD will not be trying to arrest them.’

‘That,’ Bucky smiled his own patronising smile, grey eyes like Arctic sheet ice, ‘is total fucking bullshit.’

Bucky Barnes was going to kill Steve Rogers, because Bucky Barnes was the first person Steve had encountered since he had woken up in the 21st century who didn’t fog Steve’s mind with _things are more complicated now_ or _the lines between enemies and friends aren’t as clear as they were Captain_ or _I know it seems that way but what you have to understand is that these days_.

‘I agree with Agent Barnes,’ Steve put on his best Captain America voice, and waited for the lawyer, and Nick Fury, and Agent Rumlow to all put on their you wouldn’t understand the way things work now frowns that had been crushing his chest and his certainty for the past five years.

But Bucky Barnes and his icy eyes were clearing Steve’s vision again.

Even though after the meeting, after sitting at the table and arguing on the same side for forty minutes, knowing they were losing together, Bucky would avoid Steve’s eyes and rush out as fast as possible to avoid Steve trying to shake his hand; avoid Steve’s touch.

‘Want to come spar, Captain,’ Rumlow asked, slapping Steve’s shoulder harder than necessary.

‘Sure,’ Steve shrugged, staring at his hands. That was what he was made for, after all – violence, not these pernicious wars of words.

\-----

‘Captain,’ Alexander Pierce stood and clasped Steve’s hand in both of his, in what Steve took to be a gesture of warmth and solidarity, but which felt strangely bloodless.

Steve thought that was probably on him – mostly he felt oddly cold these days, the passion that had kept him alive and warm when he was just 95 pounds of rage and loneliness seemed to have deserted him in this new century ( _almost_ ).

Pierce gestured to a pair of armchairs in the corner of his office. There was an honest to god fire burning, even though Steve was pretty certain this house had very expensive and effective central heating.

Steve settled awkwardly into one of the chairs, feeling huge and brutish in the face of Pierce’s well-aged grace.

‘I understand you have been raising some,’ Pierce paused for a beat, inclining his head slightly, ‘ _issues_ with some of the proposed legislative and technological advances currently underway at SHIELD, Captain.’

Steve sighed inwardly; he knew where this was going. Already Pierce was using words – _advances_ – which would lead down the path of gently deriding Steve’s views as old-fashioned, misinformed. _You’re just a soldier just a weapon just a symbol of whatever someone decides you should be a symbol of_.

Steve took a breath and mustered his arguments, but he knew even before he started that he would fail in the face of this razor-sharp man. Steve Rogers could have taken him, but Captain America was not made for this.

Captain America only found peace and grace in violence – fighting and fucking it was all the same.

\-----

After Bucky had left so quickly that day, Steve had stood in the kitchen for some time, every sense, every pore still coated in the smell of Bucky, the sound of his moans, his screams.

Steve had fucked a lot since he woke up – the energy in his muscles and nerves insufficiently devoured by intermittent missions and sparring with the tactical teams. His leaden brain consumed almost nothing.

So he had fucked. It came as a bit of a shock to Coulson and Fury, who had expected him to be all honour and all fight. But as long as Steve limited himself to people with an appropriate security clearance, they let it go.

But none of those encounters – some, like Rumlow, ongoing and semi-regular – could compare to Bucky. Fucking Rumlow was a bit like fighting him. Steve was always going to win, and Rumlow liked it, but hated that he liked it. His submission was grudging and tinged with self-loathing; all their other encounters marked by Rumlow’s condescending tone and aggressive masculinity.

But Bucky, Bucky was like melted sugar, opened to Steve’s hands like the inside of a rose.

Steve stood in the kitchen for a long time, staring at his hands. Then he looked at the glass Bucky had drunk from, eyes fixed on Steve, throat bobbing and breath coming fast and hot through his nose.

Then Steve Rogers smashed his fist through a cupboard door and roared and dropped hard and fast to his knees.

\-----

Steve was bone tired when Fury bailed him up on the way out of the debrief. He hasn’t changed yet. He was still in his very hot, very uncomfortable stealth suit.

‘Captain,’ Fury said, ‘I have something to show you.’

Steve was pretty fucking sure he did not want to see anything Fury wanted to show him. The last couple of times it had been some kind of new weapon that would disable an enemy in a particularly immediate an painful way, and while Steve was aware that he had lost a lot of the convictions he had once held dear, he was not going to use those things against people who, from what he could see, were almost definitely not Nazis or Hydra.

He still liked to go and visit Peggy, and reminisce about the old days, which for him were not so many years back, and for her some days were only yesterday. He like it because it was so clear to them then – Nazis, Hydra. They didn’t have to face so often the ambiguity of boys and men who were just soldiers too. They were usually facing down the monsters.

The whole world was on fire, and they were too. And Peggy had kept it, all those years. Had found Hydra growing again and stomped them out with her high-heeled shoes.

‘I had them say that to me too, Steve,’ she said on one of her good days, as he told her about yet another person pulling the things are more complicated now card.

‘They said it to me about Zola, when I found out he was working for SHIELD. They kept it from me, because I remembered what he’d done to those men you saved, the looks in their eyes. But once I knew they couldn’t stop me, hard as they tried.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Don’t lose yourself Steve Rogers.’

Because she remembered Steve Rogers, small and angry and smart. She had smiled at him when he got the flag, when he could solve problems with his brain because he had no brawn.

Then she blinked at him, confused. ‘Steve?’ she said, her face softening, ‘Oh darling, last night was so wonderful, I should have known you’d be….’ And then she slipped into sleep again. Steve sat, stroking her paper-thin skin and remembering when it was soft and creamy and flushed with fire.

‘I don’t want to see more weapons, Director,’ Steve sighed, ‘I told you I’m sticking with the SHIELD.’

‘Don’t use your moral righteousness act on me, Rogers,’ Nick growled, ‘I’ve read all the unredacted files.’

Steve rolled his eyes. ‘Whatever.’ (That was a modern sentiment he could get behind).

But he let Fury lead him through the warren of the Triskelion, to some _fucking massive giant helicopter production line_.

‘What the flying fuck?’ Steve stared around. ‘What is this?’

‘This,’ said Fury proudly, ‘is the future Captain.’ They walked past technicians putting what looked like finishing touches to the massive, heavily armoured, heavily _armed_ ships.

‘These helicarriers will be able to locate identified terrorists and eliminate them. Once launched, they will provide a comprehensive defence system which will have eyes across the whole planet. Cloaking technology will protect them from national defences, including satellites, and they will destroy their targets so thoroughly that the source of the attack will not be apparent.’

Fury continued with his explanation of the features, the weaponry, not noticing that Steve had stopped walking, staring horrified.

‘What the fuck is this?’ Steve repeated. ‘Why would you do this?’

Nick stopped.

‘You should understand, Captain.’ He gestured around him. ‘This is a shield – this will protect us, prevent us from having to even get as far as needing the kind of operation you were involved in today.’ ( _Steve knew he had heard a woman screaming in the distance, couldn’t understand the words, she was sobbing and then she stopped_ ).

Fury knew how much Steve hated these operations, knew that he had no map to this time. When he was younger, after his mother died, he had always been alone, but he had the heat of his convictions to keep him warm even when the only company he could find were suckjobs and brutal fucks with strangers. He had so briefly had Peggy, and the Howlies, and then he woke up and he was alone again, but his map was lost to him.

Steve paused for a long moment, chest tightening. He thought of Bucky Barnes and his neat suits and messy buns, the bulk of his muscular frame melting soft as butter. It was true that the world wasn’t simple, but that didn’t mean Steve didn’t understand.

‘No,’ he said, ‘this isn’t a shield. I don’t even know what this is, but it’s not right. It’s not right Nick.’

Fury stared at him with that one impenetrable eye.

‘Pierce said he spoke to you; made you understand the need for this.’

‘If this is what’s needed by SHIELD, I don’t want any part of this organisation.’ Steve pulled his shoulders up like he used to when he was less than half his current size and stalked away.

‘You know you can’t tell anyone about this Captain,’ Fury shouted after him.

\-----

Steve retraced his steps, fingers clutching tight to the shield still in his hands.

His belly was full of smouldering coals, his throat choking on smoke.

He stepped into the lift – to where? He needed a shower. He’d go to his office, get washed and changed, go…. _Fuck, where could he go?_

Then the lift door opened and in walked Bucky Barnes, clutching some dirty looking paper files and looking harried. He started when he saw Steve, and almost looked like he was going to run again. His hair was dishevelled and his navy suit was looking unusually crumpled. His tie was sticking out his pocket and his pale paisley shirt was unbuttoned, revealing

‘I’m sure we can stand in a lift together, Agent Barnes,’ Steve kept his voice steady and gave a smile which definitely felt like one of Alexander Pierce’s glacial grimaces.

Bucky ducked his head and lowered his eyes as he stepped into the lift, which (now of all times Steve Rogers what is wrong with you) went straight to Steve’s dick.

They stood in silence as the floors ticked up.

The lift dinged as it reached the ground level and Bucky moved to exit. Steve’s hand leaped out and hit the close button.

‘Why don’t you come to my office, Bucky. I think we have a few things to discuss.’

Bucky made a strangled noise, chewing his lip and tugging at his bun. Steve couldn’t get over how _adorable_ he was – the curve of his chest filling out his suit, those full thighs straining against his well-cut pants, while the soft waves of his hair brushed softly against blushing cheeks and his eyelashes tremble, damp and heavy.

The lift dinged again, and the door opened, the heavy air sighing out to the quiet floor. The hallways up here were empty – these private quarter of senior agents more like studios than offices.

Steve pushed his thumb against a scanner while staring into another and the door hissed open. The neat desk, the long couch which pulled out into a bed, this spoke more to how Steve’s life felt in this century than the apartment he had made fitful efforts to decorate with art purchased at markets and obscure galleries; fill with books he started but never finished.

Steve threw his shield down by the door and started unbuckling parts of his suit as he walked towards the desk.

‘What did you want to talk about?’ Bucky was still standing near the door, which had close automatically behind him, clutching the files in his arms.

_Yeah, Steve, what do you want to talk about?_ Steve was sure Bucky wouldn’t approve of what was building in the bowels of the Triskelion.

Steve wasn’t entirely clear why Bucky worked for SHIELD at all. He had resisted looking up Bucky’s file, feeling so acutely as he did the invasion of everyone you met thinking they knew you because they had read the books, read the unredacted files. But from what Steve had seen Bucky’s sense of right was deep and true and warm; and SHIELD was deep and false and cold.

Steve turned and perched on the edge of the desk, unzipping his boots and kicking them off. He could try to talk to Bucky, try to make a small alliance, struggle to find a way out of this labyrinthine tower.

Bucky fidgeted, a hint of pink dusting across his cheeks, meeting Steve’s eyes and chewing on his plump bottom lip, already so red and worried.

‘Put the files down,’ Steve said, continuing to methodically unbuckle the sides of the suit. He could feel the fabric peeling away from his sticky skin, the tendril of air brushing heightened nerves.

Bucky placed the files on a small side table, fingers trembling as he stood back up, eyes still fixed on Steve.

It was like magic, how he was already softening, eyes already sparkling with a hint of tears, breath quickening, the visible rise and fall of his chest under his half-unbuttoned shirt.

Steve stood and peeled the top of the suit off, revealing his white undershirt, then sat again to tug the legs off one by one. Moments like this he was so aware of his body, which so often still felt alien to him. Aware of the power of his muscles, the expanse of his flesh barely obscured by the undershirt and boxer briefs.

Last time Bucky had undressed for him in the subdued light of his bedroom. Here the sun still streamed in though the windows and Steve felt a rare moment of inhabiting his own huge physical presence, unfolding under the heat of the half-fearful desire in Bucky’s eyes.

‘Come here Bucky.’ Steve spread his legs, aware of his erection straining against the soft cotton, his dick already leaking,

Bucky stumbled forward, eyes still fixed on Steve, already glassy.

Steve put his hands on Bucky’s shoulders for a moment, feeling how the left was still just as firm and full as the right.

‘We all good here Buck?’ Steve asked, voice rumbling in his chest as he exercised his last reserve of control.

‘Yeah, yeah Stevie, all green here,’ Bucky murmured, eyes roaming across Steve’s face, and down across his chest.

Steve could feel the tremors in Bucky’s body as he stripped him of his jacket and shirt, letting his gingers drift across the dusting of duck hair on Bucky’s chest, his dusky nipples. He paused there, rubbing his fingers across the hardened nubs. He looked directly into Bucky’s eyes and squeezed hard, ripping a pained moan from Bucky’s lips.

The embers in Steve’s belly ignited as he squeezed Bucky’s nipples harder again, feeling the perfectly judged power in his fingertips – how much it would take to rip Bucky’s skin apart, how much was just enough to sharpen his cry and draw tears to the edges of his darkening eyes.

And then he was seizing Bucky by his shoulders and slamming him across the bare desk, holding his hand trapped as Steve tugged Bucky’s pants off, ripped his boxers off his body.

Bucky writhed, pushing back hard against Steve’s hand on his wrist, bucking against the weight of Steve’s body pressing him down against the hard, wooden service. Testing.

‘I’ve got you Bucky, I’ve got you,’ Steve crooned in his ear, grinding the fabric of his boxers against Bucky’s hard cock. ‘You’re so perfect for me.’ And fuck he was, whimpering and moaning as Steve crushed his lips with a kiss, already tasting blood where Bucky had been nervously chewing, biting harder, and then fucking his tongue hard and insistent into Bucky’s warm, giving mouth.

Steve worked his mouth down Bucky’s neck, sucking livid bruises onto his skin to draw out those sweet cries of _please Steve, please_. Steve ground their cocks together, knowing the friction of the damp cotton of his boxers would be rubbing Bucky raw. He kept his left hand on Bucky’s wrist, and his right holding his shoulder down.

‘Can you come for me like this Bucky, so desperate for me already?’ Steve bit down hard on Bucky’s left nipple, grinding him harder into the desk.

‘ _Steeeeve,_ ’ Bucky cried out and came, perfect and molten, tears already on his cheeks and blood trickling from him nipple where Steve’s teeth had broken the skin.

Steve lapped it up, his own cock throbbing. God, he loved this so much, the perfect control, the painful edge of pleasure where he could hold himself for so long. Their bellies were wet as Steve continued to grind against Bucky’s softening dick.

‘No, Steve, no I can’t take it,’ Bucky moaned.

“Yes you can, sugar, yes you can,’ Steve whispered. He stepped back for a moment and Bucky moaned, reaching his fingers out to grab at Steve’s arm.

‘Just a moment, sweetheart.’ Steve tugged off his undershirt and stepped out of his boxers, heating (impossibly) more from Bucky’s eyes roaming over his naked form.

‘I’m filthy, y’know,’ Steve pushed Bucky further onto the desk, holding Bucky’s legs up over his shoulders. ‘Been out in the field for 36 hours.’

Steve ran a hand down Bucky’s thighs, across his belly smeared with come, up to rest around his throat.

‘You don’t wanna know where these hands’ve been.’ He pushed more firmly on Bucky’s throat, pushing his head up. Bucky wasn’t struggling anymore, his lips were parted as he gasped in Steve’s grasp, eyes shining and dark.

Steve moved his other hand to squeeze Bucky’s cock, already hardening again. Bucky choked out a moan and Steve pushed a little harder on his throat again, holding and then releasing so Bucky could gasp a breath, gasp out a _Stevie, please_.

Steve hummed and smiled a little, and pushed two fingers into Bucky’s mouth as he squeezed hard on his balls, Bucky shuddering and crying out hoarsely.

As Bucky lapped and suckled on his fingers Steve pushed his thumb, still dry, past Bucky’s fluttering rim. Bucky arched away for a moment, then pushed down, body quaking like he was torn between instincts.

‘That’s it,’ Steve stared down at those perfect lashes, those lips stained red sucking wetly at his fingers, feeling the warmth and tightness of Bucky’s body closing on his thumb.

Steve pulled back again, his own cock massive and heavy between his legs. But the drawn-out pleasure of seeing Bucky sprawled wanton and breaking across his desk was worth more than one, two, even five explosive orgasms.

Steve walked into the bathroom and pulled a bottle of lube out of the draw.

The sight of Bucky with those beautiful, thick thighs spread wide, his cock almost totally hard again, his head tipped back and breath coming shallow and short.

Steve was torn. With Bucky’s head hanging back like that he could fuck his throat so easily. How good Bucky’s mouth had felt last time, how beautifully debased he had look choking on Steve’s cock.

But no, Steve was a man with a plan, a man completely in his body, in the moment, this moment which was, perhaps, the end of him.

Bucky smiled beatifically when Steve rans his hands along the back of his thighs, tugging his head back onto the desk and pressing Bucky’s knees back to his shoulders, bending him in half.

‘Steve, please,’ Bucky blinked.

‘You’re an angel Bucky,’ Steve whispered huskily, pressing soft kisses to his sweat soaked brow.

‘Stevie…’ Bucky wriggled his ass, legs straining against Steve’s grip.

‘Of course baby,’ Steve straightened a little, ‘I know what you want.’ And he did know – Bucky wanted the strength, the violence in these hands, wanted to be held down, broken open, torn in pieces. But to remain still strangely untouched.

Steve could give Bucky this small thing he wanted, at least, even if he couldn’t give Bucky everything he deserved.

‘Hold this leg sweetheart,’ Steve pulled Bucky’s right hand around to grip behind the knee and pushed his shoulder down on Bucky’s left leg, allowing Steve’s hands to uncap the lube and smear the cool liquid across his hand.

Discarding the tube and holding Bucky’s left leg again, Steve rubbed his lube-coated fingers across Bucky’s hole, tugging at the rim and the entrance, feeling it quiver and open a little for him, still so tight and so hot.

Bucky groaned and shuddered, tears already gathering in his eyes again. Steve gazed down at Bucky’s flushed, sweaty pectoral muscles, the soft curve of his belly over solid abs. Steve wanted to bury his face in that soft flesh, suck marks on the points of Bucky’s hipbones, devour every inch of his warm flesh.

Instead, Steve slicked his own cock with a generous amount of lube, moaning a little as he squeezed his hard length.

‘I’m going to fuck you now Bucky.’

‘Steve,’ Bucky sobbed, ‘Please, I’m not… you’re so…’ Bucky hiccupped a little, staring up at Steve with wide, trusting eyes.

‘Sshhh, Buck.’ Steve pushed the tip of his cock against Bucky’s tight rim. ‘You’re so good, so perfect for me, you can take it.’ Steve kept murmuring sweet encouragements as he ruthlessly pushed slow but unflinching into Bucky. He could feel the shuddering of Bucky’s walls around him, feel the tight hot fit, the friction which was drawing a strangled scream from Bucky, rising to a broken sob as Steve bottomed out, balls pressed snugly against Bucky’s hot, sweaty flesh.

Bucky’s whole body seemed to turn to liquid as he struggled to accommodate the sudden intrusion into his body. He lost hold of his leg and Steve took over, bending Bucky in half. Steve kept whispering sweet tender nothings in Bucky’s ears as he waited for the total surrender.

‘Please,’ Bucky croaked wetly. And Steve pulled back out entirely and drove his cock in again, hard and fast this time. Steve let himself go, fucking into Bucky over and over, punching screams from his chest. Steve could measure exactly was Bucky could take, feel his body hover on the edge of complete destruction, measure exactly the knife edge of pleasure and pain in Bucky’s wildly rolling eyes.

Steve stood up straight, hauling Bucky up by his legs to find the perfect angle where Bucky’s cries changed pitch as Steve fucked against his prostate again and again.

Steve felt the pressure of his own orgasm building, the fire stoking in his belly as Bucky writhed and sobbed, completely undone. And as the pitch of Bucky’s cries joined with Steve’s own animal grunts, Steve reached, holding Bucky’s ankles together with one hand and using the other to grip Bucky’s cock hard, jerking him off with quick, rough strokes.

And then they came together, Bucky spasming around Steve’s dick and milking him as Steve came again and again, filling Bucky’s ass over and over again. Bucky’s own cock spasmed feebly as Steve’s hand kept working it, watching as Bucky’s face contorted with beautiful, unbearable agony.

When Steve was finally spent, he lowered Bucky down as gently and tenderly as he dared, moaning softly as he pulled out and watched a rivulet of sticky white run down Bucky’s crack and onto the desk.

Bucky was still crying softly, and Steve used his undershirt to wipe the sweat and tears and snot off Bucky’s crumpled face, gently dab the blood still smeared around his nipple.

He cradled Bucky for a moment, then lifted him off the desk and carried him through into the bathroom, heart full to burst as Bucky nuzzled into Steve’s shoulder, breath settling and sobs subsiding.

Steve knew he only had a few minutes, and he wanted to use them well. He spread a towel in the shower cubicle and settled Bucky onto it, keeping hold of his hand as he ran warm water onto a washcloth in the sink. He gently wiped the cloth over Bucky’s inflamed skin, carefully dabbing at his raw hole, his abused nipple.

On the broken skin he dabbed a little disinfectant, shushing Bucky as he squirmed from the sting. Then he cracked a bottle of water and tipped in gently down Bucky’s throat, watching him greedily suck down the cook liquid.

Steve crouched there naked in the shower with Bucky, allowing himself a few terrible moments of indulging in the tenderness that followed the violence; the desire to tend and heal and hold the beautiful thing he had destroyed.

He felt the shift in Bucky’s body, saw how those grey eyes sharpened again, the warm fog of lust clearing, and that impenetrable gaze returning. Steve was not a fool – he knew that what was laid before him when Bucky surrendered to his hands was by no means the whole of this man, who remained still largely untouched and unreadable; unreachable.

‘I’d better get going,’ Bucky croaked out, his throat obviously still raw from screaming.

Steve got the message and stood up and stepped back, handing Bucky another clean towel and the half full bottle of water.

‘You can shower properly if you like. I’ll leave you be.’ Steve grabbed the robe he kept behind the door and covered himself, feeling huge and aggressively muscular in the face of Bucky’s softer, more human lines.

While he waited for Bucky Steve mechanically cleaned the desk and the floor off, picking up the pens that had scattered at some point, picking up his stealth suit and laying it out for the cleaners to come for it.

He knocked softly and pushed Bucky’s clothes through the door, then waited for the water to stop and the soft rustling of Bucky dressing.

Bucky stepped out looking clean and fresh, though his eyes darted nervously to the files he had left on the side table.

‘I didn’t look at them,’ Steve waved a hand. He felt so heavy again, with the knowledge of the helicarriers, the question of what he should, what he _could_ do about any of this, all of this.

‘Thanks,’ Bucky grabbed at the files.

Steve stood and rummaged through a cupboard, funding a non-descript lockable case someone had given him at some point, obviously not realising that no one needed Captain America to read anything.

‘Here, that should keep them safe.’ Bucky took the case and stuffed the files in, spinning the dials to set a code ad snapping the lock shut.

Steve also gave him another bottle of water and gestured to the couch.

‘You can rest a little more if you like. I’m just going to shower. I’ll leave you be.’

Bucky stared at him wordlessly, guarded now.

Steve sighed and walked into the bathroom, closing the door gently. He stripped off the robe and got under the shower, turning the heat up so the water stung his skin. When he shut his eyes there was a confusion of images – Bucky, those ships, the snap of a neck as his shield hit a body.

He stopped the shower and stepped out, dripping, hands resting on the sink as he met his own eyes in the mirror.

Outside the door he heard Bucky’s soft footsteps and the door opening and hissing shut again.

He stared down at his hands. They were trembling. A sudden wash of rage flowed down his arms and suddenly the porcelain was cracking and shattering.

In the mirror those blue eyes, those all-American good looks.

The mirror shattered as he hit it with two fists, crunching into the reinforced wall behind. His hands were broken now, bloodied, shards of glass lodged into his flesh. He could already feel the pain of the cuts healing.

He raised a broken hand to his chest, struggling to breath, choking on the tenderness no one had ever wanted from him; that they hadn’t built him to give.


	3. We cannot take any name for granted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky slid onto the bench beside him, and Captain Rogers looked at him almost hesitantly, that slight, almost permanent frown creasing between is eyebrows.
> 
> ‘Hello Agent Barnes,’ he greeted Bucky, keeping his voice even and subdued. Bucky had noticed that, how the Captain’s voice was this magical instrument, but usually muted and muffled.
> 
> Bucky tried really hard not to think about some of the uses that voice could be put to when its powers were unleashed in the form of precious phrases like so good for me, so perfect, so beautiful.
> 
> ‘Thanks for meeting me Captain,’ Bucky tried to sound serious and under control, but feared he may have squeaked a little. Captain Rogers raised an eyebrow and sighed.
> 
> ‘Look, it’s obvious you don’t really want to have much to do with me in an informal setting outside of,’ the Captain waved his hand in the general direction of me railing you until you cry, ‘but could we at least drop the Captain and Agent bullshit.’
> 
> \-----
> 
> The action heats up and some conversations happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I did change the number of chapters, but I'm also publishing this Chapter and the Epilogue at the same time, so hopefully that makes up for it!

‘So this is the deal,’ Agent Hill said.

She and Bucky were holed up in a terrible downtown Starbucks packed with tourists, both domestic and international, making so much noise that anybody trying to listen to their conversation, either in person or via a bug, would hear only inane opinions about autumn colors, monuments and various Smithsonians.

‘You can involve one other person in the plan.’ Hill sipped on her grande pumpkin spice latte. ‘If you can identify one other person who you think you can trust.’

Bucky looked mournfully into his own grande americano. His hair could now easily go up into a bun, and he liked his black coffee brewed from artesanally roasted single origin coffee beans and prepared by an attractive person with sleeve tattoos and facial piercings, and he wasn’t afraid to admit it. Fucking Starbucks.

‘Wait,’ he suddenly registered what she was saying. ‘Am I your one person?’

She raised an eyebrow at him,

‘All of that taking me to meetings and showing me weird basement paper files, that was you working out whether to trust me?’

She smirked at him a little.

‘But how did you decide on me in the first place?’ he asked, frowning. ‘Why me and not some other random desk jockey? Or like,’ he paused for a fraction of a second, ‘Captain America or someone?’

‘Well first of all, I can never tell you who told me, so there’s at least one other person I trust. Second, you got into that really massive argument with the audit team that one time about how they had paid insufficient attention to spending in relation to classified line items in the budget.’ She took a thoughtful sip of her travesty of a drink. ‘I had just never seen anyone take financial accountability that seriously in SHIELD.’

Bucky snorted. ‘Well what’s the point of an audit if you can just classify something and no one will look at it?’

Hill nodded approvingly and then shrugged. ‘Anyway, I looked at your record and it seemed like you’d been a good Sergeant, good head in a crisis, but by the look of it not too caught up in the military bullshit. You’d turned down a prosthetic arm, which would have allowed you to take on active duties at SHIELD, and instead you were complaining about audits and trying to requisition files to _fill unexplained gaps in the information provided which were preventing you from doing an adequate assessment of the intelligence situation_.’

‘Oh yeah.’ Bucky _had_ sent a lot of memos to that effect.

‘So, anyway, as you have concluded yourself, things are coming to a head, and the watching brief we’ve been keeping up to now is no longer sufficient. So,’ Maria pushed one of the paper bags in front of her towards him, which he seriously hoped contained something more than just a pumpkin spice cookie, ‘now we need to put the plan into action, and you have to find someone else.’

They both stood, Bucky abandoning his hideous, watery coffee-adjacent beverage.

As they walked out into the autumnal day Bucky pulled his pea coat around him and carefully pushed the cookie bag into an inner pocket.

‘I really thought I was doing something different when I joined, you now? Like, I wasn’t going to be a destroying things anymore, I was going to be protecting them.’

‘What was it that Peggy Carter said?’ Agent Hill mused into the chill breeze, ‘ _We cannot take it for granted that any name, even one with the weight of the United States of America, can be a synonym for freedom, justice and fairness if it holds close to its heart dictators, fascists and monsters._ ’

‘I guess the word shield is a bit like that,’ she pulled on a very nice pair of black leather gloves. ‘It can lose its meaning if you start using it as a weapon too often.’

Bucky thought of Captain America, who wielded his shield as a weapon, and how his hands had been so gentle as he wiped down Bucky’s skin, cradled his head. But no one let Steve Rogers use his hands like that for long; least of all Bucky Barnes.

\-----

Nonetheless, here Bucky was, approaching a bench on which the stupid, handsome, muscular, golden Captain was sitting. Bucky observed how he sat with his knees close together, his hands resting on his (sinuous yet bulging) thighs. It was like he was taking care not to occupy too much space, staring out across Prospect Park.

Bucky wondered if he was remembering how it looked before, when the Captain ( _Steve_ ) was young and small (and probably sick and hungry).

Bucky was theoretically on leave, visiting his sister in New York. Steve had a charity thing in Manhattan (totally coincidentally not like Bucky had been stalking his public engagements or anything) and Bucky had slipped a note under his hotel room door suggesting this rendezvous.

Bucky was like 90 per cent sure that Steve’s office at SHIELD was bugged, if not his apartment as well, so his cover of sexually obsessed Captain America fanboy seemed pretty secure and likely backed up with solid recorded evidence.

Bucky slid onto the bench beside him, and Captain Rogers looked at him almost hesitantly, that slight, almost permanent frown creasing between is eyebrows.

‘Hello Agent Barnes,’ he greeted Bucky, keeping his voice even and subdued. Bucky had noticed that, how the Captain’s voice was this magical instrument, but usually muted and muffled.

Bucky tried really hard not to think about some of the uses that voice could be put to when its powers were unleashed in the form of precious phrases like _so good for me_ , _so perfect_ , _so beautiful_.

‘Thanks for meeting me Captain,’ Bucky tried to sound serious and under control, but feared he may have squeaked a little. Captain Rogers raised an eyebrow and sighed a little.

‘Look, it’s obvious you don’t really want to have much to do with me in an informal setting outside of,’ the Captain waved his hand in the general direction of _me railing you until you cry_ , ‘but could we at least drop the Captain and Agent bullshit.’ He looked at Bucky in a way which seemed to say, _I’ve had my dick up your ass could you please stop calling me by that ridiculous honorific which isn’t even a real rank_.

Bucky let out a shaky exhale. He was very much trying to avoid dealing with the complex knot of feelings in his chest that made themselves known when he thought about one Steve Rogers. He was vaguely aware that there was a lot of thirst for the figure of his teen fantasies and a fair amount of all of his deepest submissive desires being fulfilled in that person, all shot through with darker threads of how sad those blue eyes looked sometimes and how gentle those hands could be after they were so rough and imagine everyone you knew except Peggy Carter was dead and she was old and….

‘Okay, Steve.’ Bucky thought getting to business was probably the best way to move on from this weird, unprecedented emotional activity he was definitely not interacting with right now.

‘Thank you, Bucky.’ And there was just a touch of treacle in that sentence, but Bucky was here to save the world, or something, not thing about various sugar syrups and their similarity or otherwise to Steve Rogers’ voice.

‘I had to find one person in SHIELD I could trust completely.’ Bucky decided to cut to the chase.

‘Why?’ Steve frowned. ‘You chose me?’

‘Those are two questions, _Steve_ ,’ Bucky wrinkled his nose at him. ‘The answer to the second one is because you have stormed out of like, fifty per cent of all the meetings we have been in together because you get mad at like everything everyone is doing. As you should, it turns out.’ Bucky crossed his arm over his stomach. Probably the other thing he wouldn’t mind a prosthetic for – crossing your arms was a really good defensive body language position.

‘Given that the answer to the first question is – I need to trust someone with elements of a plan to reveal to the country and the world that SHIELD is using all their private information to decide whether or not they might ever do anything bad and then execute them in advance if SHIELD decides that bad thing is bad enough, or maybe just imprison them forever without trial and experiment on them if it’s not so bad.’

Steve kneaded his thighs in a way Bucky was pretty sure (having direct experience of being kneaded by those very hands) would hurt quite a lot.

‘You don’t look super surprised,’ Bucky commented. ‘I hope that’s not because you’re in on the whole judge, jury, executioner thing. Because superheroes do just sort of functionally tend that way.’

Steve shot him a withering eye roll, which comforted Bucky a bit.

‘No it’s just… I’ve known things are wrong pretty much this whole time and what have I done? All those meetings, the fucking Legal Department, and then Fury showed me these _helicarriers_ they’re building.’

‘Helicarriers?’ Bucky asked. This had not been in the information he had.

‘Yeah, under the Triskelion they’re building these giant automated gunships with what look like very accurate guns that could, for example, be aimed at people identified by some sort of program, as long as you could work out exactly were they were.’ Steve’s frown had moved into a sort of supressed rage and grief complex.

‘For example, using the Logistics program SHIELD has been working on,’ Bucky added. ‘Ugh, that’s pretty bad. I’d been assuming they’d have to at least limit the numbers of people they arrested and detained and potentially tortured and killed just because of manpower, but if they have giant automated guns….’

Steve broke a large chunk of wood off the bench and stared at it kind of sadly.

‘Don’t look so glum,’ Bucky really didn’t like Steve looking this sad (even though Bucky thought maybe he had looked a bit like this the two times Bucky had fled from his presence immediately after incredibly intense, emotional fucks and a pretty minimal amount of aftercare). ‘We have a plan.’

Steve looked at him, with those incredibly blue eyes framed by indecently long lashes. ‘But what help will I be,’ he asked.

Bucky stared at him for a while. ‘I mean, you’re legitimately a superhero.’

‘I mean,’ Steve shrugged and stared at a duck for a while, ‘I’m really strong and fast and I can survive long periods frozen, but mostly I just hit people hard and break things.’ He stared at the piece of broken wood in his hand.

Then he said, very quietly, ‘You know better than anyone Bucky that the only thing I’m good for is hurting people.’

Bucky’s heart kind of broke a little bit in his chest, and he kind of maybe felt like the biggest jerk in the universe.

‘Steve, no, you’re good for so much more than that.’

‘Sure, like what? How can I help your plan? Beat up the lawyers? Fight Agent Rumlow? It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not like we can pick out particular people here who are responsible. It’s not as if those ones are Hydra and these ones aren’t. It’s just everyone doing a little bit wrong for a greater good actually adds up to a greater bad. I’m built for simpler things.’ Steve’s mouth was twisted and he was crushing the wood in his hand. ‘I also have literally no friends here… _now_. Who would I choose as my person to tell?’

Bucky put out a hand and stopped him, taking the wood away and starting to pick the splinters from Steve’s bleeding hand, which was actually pretty difficult because the skin kept starting to heal over.

‘I have something you can do,’ Bucky said, not looking Steve in the eyes. ‘That’s why I came to you.’ Bucky frowned hard at Steve’s hand. ‘You are good for other things Steve. You have a beautiful voice for starters, and I bet that was beautiful even before they gave you the serum.’

Bucky’s ears burned, but he had at least got Steve to listen. ‘I’m sure you have some friends too, if you’d let yourself.’

And Bucky let himself look up at Steve for a moment, at the frown line and the pouty, angry twist of those soft, plump lips.

‘Okay Bucky, tell me what I can do.’

After Bucky told Steve the plan, and got rid of most of the splinters, they both stood up to go.

‘Can I ask you a question, Bucky?’ Steve asked.

‘Sure Steve,’ Bucky shoved his hand into his pocket and handed Steve the cookie bag.

‘Why did you join SHIELD in the first place? It just doesn’t seem to fit you.’

Bucky sighed.

‘I was in the army, fighting in a war that wasn’t much like yours. It was bad in all the normal ways that wars are.’ They both took a moment to think about those ways. ‘But it was also fought for bad reasons, against unclear enemies, with unclear allies, and I personally did many bad things. I made it out a little unmade,’ Bucky gestured at his arm, ‘and while I was in hospital a SHIELD recruiter came by.

‘They tried to talk me into a new prosthetic arm, and joining the tactical teams, and I refused. I somehow liked myself more when I wasn’t fighting, and couldn’t they way I used to. I was a sniper, and I definitely couldn’t do that anymore.’ Bucky ran a hand through his hair, realised it was in a bun and pulled his fingers out, doubtless ruining the whole production.

‘But I’ve always been a sucker for Peggy Carter, so they managed to talk me into the whole you’ll be protecting the country this way without fighting thing.’ Bucky sighed. ‘I was a real innocent.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘I’d never encountered a legal department before.’

Steve smiled at him softly, actually starting to eat the awful cookie (though tucking the USB safely away). Bucky guessed this conversation had burned quite a few supersoldier calories.

‘Well, thanks for trusting me, Buck.’ He smiled again. ‘I know Peggy would be proud of you.’

And Steve Rogers walked away. Bucky guessed he deserved it, a little. His cover involved looking heartbroken because Captain America had turned him down, and he didn’t find it super difficult to look pretty bummed out.

\-----

Bucky was at his favourite hipster coffee shop when possibly the most terrifying moment of his life, before or after, occurred.

He was drinking his single origin batch brew when the Black Widow sat down opposite him, wearing a hand knitted orange jumper with a black cat in a witch’s hat riding a broom across the front. Despite the jumper and a complete lack of the makeup she usually wore when she on the rare occasion appeared in the SHIELD cafeteria in a black leather jumpsuit, she looked just as hot and terrifying as she always did. Just really warm and comfortable as well.

She arrived with a cappuccino, which on a scale of his coffee to Starbucks was pretty acceptable in Bucky’s view. Hopefully she wasn’t going to murder him.

‘Agent Barnes.’

‘Agent Romanov.’

Interestingly she was second on his list of people to trust, if something terrible had happened to Steve. Bucky knew she and Steve had fought together in the Chitauri invasion, and while it was unclear if she had actual superpowers or was just incredibly awesome, he felt like she was a woman with a healthy distrust of institutions.

‘I just came by to tell you not to worry about Steve,’ she said, eating the foam and chocolate powder off her coffee with her teaspoon.

Bucky released a breath. He had, in fact, been incredibly worried about Steve, who had not appeared at any meetings since Bucky had seen him in the park and was not, as Agent Rumlow claimed, on a mission. (Hill had confirmed this, through some unspecified means).

‘Not to murder me,’ Bucky checked.

Romanov inclined her head slightly.

‘Not yet.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘At some point we might need to have a chat about how you’ve been treating Steve.’ She sipped her coffee. ‘After.’

‘After.’ Bucky repeated. Good, he thought. Steve had chosen her, and she was smart, and would have taken care of him, and Bucky hadn’t been indirectly responsible for the death or imprisonment of Captain America, on top of being directly responsible for Steve Rogers looking sad.

Romanov slid him across a paper bag.

‘Give this to Agent Hill,’ she said. ‘I hear she likes pumpkin spice.’ And Romanov wandered out of the coffee shop.

\-----

Bucky was in the Logistics Control Room. It was a very important day, on which they were launching a new strategic program that would allow them to pinpoint the location of almost anyone on the planet, using satellite technology and a variety of bilateral agreements with almost every technology company globally as well as a range of governments.

What Bucky knew, which most people in this room didn’t, was that this was also a very important day in the Suppression and Prevention Control Room, the Data and Analytics Control Room, and the Tactical Command Centre. The Legal Department were all at drinks, because their legislative amendments had passed the week before, and all the relevant subordinate regulations were signed and registered.

Plan B was ready and waiting. Hill had been able to get whatever Romanov had hidden in the pumpkin spice treats into the helicarriers, with assistance from whomever her other contact was.

Romanov seemed pretty unconcerned about the whole only two people knowing you system. She probably figured she could resist torture (probably by killing her torturers before they even got started) and that no one would give her name out under pressure.

Bucky only knew that there was now something in the helicarriers that would somehow lead to them all being destroyed if Plan B had to go into action.

Plan A depended on Captain America’s dulcet tones. Which right now, on the dot of 3pm, suddenly started broadcasting on all channels through the SHIELD building.

‘Colleagues, fellow agents, fellow Americans, fellow citizens of the world.’ _Molasses_ , it was definitely Molasses today. ‘This is Steve Rogers speaking.’ Well duh, Bucky thought, who else would manage to sound like Brooklyn and the backwoods, downtown and the desert, Manhattan and the mountains, all at once.

‘You may not know it, but the project you are working on right now, whichever project, is part of a bigger vision that only one person has true oversight of. While your individual part may not look ideal to you, you have convinced yourself it is necessary to protect your family, your country, your world.

‘What I want to tell you today is what the whole project looks like. Then I am going to ask you – is this necessary?

‘Secretary Pierce’s plan,’ a gasp went up around Bucky. He thought they probably all had been thinking the eye with oversight was in the head of one Nick Fury. As far as Bucky could tell, there were key components that even Fury didn’t realise were connected when they were first proposed.

‘Secretary Pierce’s plan,’ (it was like Steve knew he needed to pause for the gasp), ‘is to link the program developed by Data and Analytics, which will identify people who may commit a range of offences (which may or may not in fact be illegal) in the future, to the program developed by Logistics to precisely locate individuals across the globe, to the giant automated gunships about to be launched by Surveillance and Prevention, and use those ships to kill those people, and to continue to run these programs, continue to kill people, for an undefined period of time into the future.’

Steve sounded shocked, disappointed. Like disappointed treacle, Bucky thought, shifting slightly in his suddenly slightly too tight around the crotch pants.

‘So, I ask you, how do you feel about the project you are working on? Do you feel sure that everyone you love, your friends, your family, that every one of them will not possibly in the future commit an offence, which may or may not be criminal now or ever?’

Everyone around Bucky was definitely thinking about that (who couldn’t when Captain America had asked you to?). Some had already clearly identified a particular someone close who was definitely a helicarriers target. Others were maybe not so convinced.

But obviously Steve wasn’t so naïve to think that his disappointed voice would convert everyone.

‘And if you are sure that these guns will only destroy the wicked, the evil, the criminal, the _bad people_ , and you go ahead with launching this project, you should know that right now details of all of these projects are being leaked onto the internet. And while the names of the people who worked on them, worked for SHIELD, have not been released, should the projects proceed your names will be published alongside the name of every person identified by Data and Analytics, located by Logistics, tracked down by a tactical team, or shot by a helicarrier.

‘And yes, some of them will be bad people, but how sure are you that there won’t be some, or more than some, who were just people who thought a bit differently, dreamed different dreams, spoke up against people in power, lived lives that were a little different from some arbitrary definition of normal? People with partners, children, parents and friends who will mourn them?’

In the long pause, Bucky could see a few people typing some commands into their terminals, likely sending viruses into the system to corrupt at least some of the data, in case it went to Plan C.

‘In a moment, someone near you is going to stand up, someone who has already decided this is wrong, and they are going to tell you what to do to prevent this from happening. I can’t stop this from happening, nor can Ironman. One of you or five of you or ten of you can’t stop this. But there is a number which is enough.’

There, there at the end his voice rose in volume, but deepened too. _Captain America is calling you to duty_. It was like burnt toffee – sweet and bitter and hard enough to break your teeth.

Bucky stood up.

‘Everyone, I have some instructions for you.’

\-----

In the end, most people just hadn’t been able to disappoint Captain America, or see their name listed in a data dump on the side of the large, well-armed state with unclear motives and targets. Everyone trusted themselves, but obviously didn’t have the same level of trust that their colleagues would be as morally on the straight and narrow.

The helicarriers never launched, nothing had to explode Plan B style and no Plan C style ongoing guerrilla struggle had to be launched.

Sure, opinion was divided and there was a lot of yelling on TV and in Congress, and Alexander Pierce still had his job for now, and lots of people were saying they were disappointed in Steve Rogers and maybe someone else should be Captain America.

Bucky Barnes didn’t have a job anymore, and he was pretty sure the Legal Department at least was going to come after him, but all in all he felt like he was on the side of right and good.

He was also sleeping on the couch at Becca’s place, and possibly going to be on the receiving end of a shovel talk (or maybe just a shovel given Bucky was probably passed the warning stage) from Natasha Romanov, but you had to take the bad with the good.

Steve, it seemed, after meeting Bucky had indeed got in touch with the Black Widow, who had suggested Tony Stark, as a man in possession of a good fortune and a lot of IT equipment who might be kindly disposed towards one Steve Rogers.

And from various TV interviews Bucky had watched (repeatedly late at night when unable to sleep on the couch) it seemed Steve was now living in Stark Tower, which Tony Stark was proposing to rename Avengers Tower.

Becca walked in on Bucky sitting with unwashed hair in a pair of sweatpants, watching for the twelfth time in a row the interview where Steve turned to the camera and said (in some sort of blossom honey tones):‘The heroes that day were the people at SHIELD who, when faced with a choice, chose to reserve their judgement on their fellow human beings, and give everyone a chance to change.’

‘James Buchanan Barnes.’ Becca’s hands were on her hips, and her eyes were narrowed. ‘We’ve been here before, and we do not like it, do we?’

Bucky’s head snapped up, and he had a few flashbacks to the last time he was sleeping on Becca’s couch, during the period SHIELD was recruiting him, he was trying desperately to both date and avoid dating Josh the nurse, and Becca was very heavily and constantly on his case, threatening to send him back to their parents in Indiana.

As a result Bucky found himself half an hour later, showered, conditioned, hair brushed, enjoying the hipster heartland of Brooklyn with his sister, when from behind him in the coffee line he heard, ‘Bucky?’

Oh no. Bucky was fucked.

He turned slowly and there was Steve Rogers, _bearded_ by all that was holy, with a handsome, grinning man with a gap tooth.

‘Bucky.’ Steve repeated again, actually _smiling_ in what looked like _delight_. The man beside Steve cleared his throat.

‘Bucky, this is Sam. Sam, Bucky.’ Sam held out a hand and Bucky shook it. Becca cleared her throat and Bucky dazedly introduced her. He felt like maybe she was piecing together the repeated viewings of clips of Captain America, the unwashed hair, and his current very, very heated cheeks.

Fortunately for Bucky, it was their turn to order, so there was a bunch of awkward conversation around the transactions, and then Steve and Sam had to go somewhere, but Sam was elbowing Steve, who was actually _blushing?_ And Steve was giving Bucky his number and saying Bucky should come to the tower sometime, or yeah sure Sam good suggestion why not specifically come on Thursday for that specific dinner when everyone including Tony and Clint and _Natasha_ would be there. And Becca was like of course Bucky will go and I will remember and make sure that he does.

And then Bucky was in the street clutching a really, really fantastic coffee and a jar of dill pickles and he was totally fucked.

\-----

But Bucky Barnes was not a fool. And when he thought this through from like a _strategic_ perspective he could see clearly that he should not have his first conversation with Steve be at some sort of weird Avengers family dinner party.

He strongly suspected that Steve had given only a very basic version of the story to incredibly attractive Sam, who probably thought this was some sort of wholesome, romantic, squishy thing; not a pretty hardcore, rough, bleeding nipples, uncomfortable sitting for days and bruises all over your skin for weeks kind of thing.

So Bucky manned up and messaged Steve, and slipped into the tower unmolested by super spies, even if he was certainly not unobserved.

The lift, which was very polite and introduced itself as Jarvis, took Bucky directly to Steve’s suite, which turned out to be an entire floor. Steve had moved a fair bit of the stuff he’d had in DC in here, but obviously hadn’t quite worked out what he was doing with it. A lot of the paintings were still just leaning against the walls, and Steve’s slightly homelier furniture was still in a standoff with a bunch of very modern, very expensive looking pieces.

Steve opened the door wearing sweatpants and a (as ever extremely tight) t-shirt. Though this one was purple with a picture of a hawk on it. Steve also had the decency to look guarded and enigmatic rather than smiling and blushing.

‘Hi Bucky,’ he greeted softly.

‘Hi Steve.’

‘You want anything to drink?’ Steve gestured vaguely at the kitchen.

‘Um, yeah, some water?’ Bucky really needed something to do with his hands. That beard was insane. It was a rich dark brown, and looked like it would definitely be all scratchy and delightful on say, for example, a person’s neck or inner thighs.

Steve brought out two glasses of water and gestured towards a couch which definitely looked like team Steve not team Interior Decorator.

They sat beside one another, at a safe ( _yeah right Barnes_ ) distance, angled slightly so they didn’t have to stare into one another’s eyes.

‘So, um, I am going to come to dinner, but I thought maybe we should talk first, or something?’ _Or something_ , _fucking good work Bucky_.

Steve shifted and put down his glass.

‘I’m sorry Bucky, I didn’t mean to pressure you. Sam knows…he knows I like you, but not about…’ Steve did his usual _that whole wild uncontrollable sex_ handwave. ‘He’s just trying to be helpful.’

‘He seemed nice,’ Bucky said, ‘How does he fit in?’

‘Well, after Natasha and I came to Tony, the back up plans kind of multiplied, and Sam was involved in Plan B3, which needed a lot of air support. He was in this military program and has wings he can fly with. Like, not actual wings, but a suit.’ Steve leaned back into the couch, looking kind of tired. ‘Tony made a lot of plans, all of which we didn’t end up needing.’

‘Because Plan A worked,’ Bucky said, ‘You rallying the troops.’ _With your voice of sweetened liquid amber_.

‘Yeah, yeah it did.’ Steve smiled a little, while still frowning, and staring at his hands.

And because Bucky was a weak man, he slid closer to Steve, and put his hand into one of Steve’s. ‘You did it Steve.’

And then their mouths were crushing together and god that beard did feel so good, like Steve’s warm lips, the nip of his teeth, the slide of his tongue.

And Bucky was straddling his lap, grinding down on Steve, who was grinding up with all that power and strength in those perfectly proportioned thighs.

And Bucky was moaning, feeling the bite of Steve’s fingers into the soft flesh of his sides, drifting down to grip his ass cheeks and tug them apart through his jeans.

‘Steve,’ Bucky whispered, breaking the kiss and exposing his neck, mewling a little as Steve rubbed the beard over his racing pulse, bit gently then harder into the soft skin over his clavicle.

‘Bucky,’ and Steve’s voice was so husky, like he was holding so much in.

‘Yes Steve, _please_.’

And Bucky found himself lifted bodily and laid across the arm of the couch on his stomach, his jeans removed in a few quick, skilful motions. Bucky’s head and torso were hanging over the edge, his arm dangling to the floor. He had no purchase anywhere, all he could do was wriggle his hardened cock against the fabric of the chair.

‘No moving,’ Steve commanded and his voice was black and hot and crunchy. The back of his hand came down hard against Bucky’s ass, jolting his dick against the couch and causing a bright flash of glorious pain. Bucky cried out and squeezed his eyes shut.

And then all of Steve’s heavy body, now naked and oh so warm, was spread against Bucky’s back. Bucky could feel Steve’s cock pressing between Bucky’s thighs, huge and hard, feel Steve’s beard rubbing against the back of his neck as Steve breathed into Bucky’s ears.

For one terrifying, delightful moment Bucky thought Steve was going to plough into him without any preparation or warning. But he reached down and rummaged through one of the boxes under the coffee table and then after a short pause two lubed fingers were plunging into Bucky’s hole, burning and stretching and tugging a few tears from Bucky’s eyes.

‘You like that, Buck,’ Steve growled into Bucky’s ear. Bucky gritted his teeth and nodded pitifully, trying desperately not to move again.

Steve kept thrusting his fingers in and out quickly, the sting and the burn blending with the throbbing of Bucky’s cock and the pressure in his belly.

Then the fingers were gone and Bucky barely had time to sob from the loss before Steve’s tip was pressing at Bucky’s hole.

‘I’m going to fuck you now, Bucky,’ Steve stroked an errant curl back behind Bucky’s ear, then grabbed him by the hair, tugging his head up as he entered Bucky in one long, relentless thrust.

For a moment they paused, bodies pressed together, the breath coming quickly in both their chests. Tears were streaming down Bucky’s cheeks and he felt warm drops (sweat?) falling onto his back as Steve leaned over him.

Then Steve was fucking him fast and hard, and Bucky’s inflamed cock was grinding against the arm of the chair. Bucky was just moaning a single moan, punched out in time with Steve’s cock pulling all the way out of him and driving back in.

It could have been thirty seconds or a hundred years, Bucky didn’t know, but he was coming for all eternity into the couch, clenching around Steve who was filling him up and fucking back into him until Bucky could feel a mess of fluid running down the back of his balls as Steve fucked into him, maybe endlessly.

Then it was done, and Steve was pulling out, softening, letting go of Bucky’s hair and stroking it, pulling his useless body back onto the couch and folding round him.

Their breathing steadied, but Bucky still felt like jelly, empty of everything. He was cold for a few moments when Steve left him, then hummed in delight as a warm washcloth moved over him, held by Steve’s even warmer hands. Cool water was tipped down his throat, and it all felt like a beautiful, familiar ritual.

The next step of the ritual being Bucky coming back to this plane of existence and realising that he was being cradled and tended to by a very large, very silent Captain America, no _Steve Rogers_ , and while it should help that he was just _Steve_ now, actually maybe it didn’t.

Steve just let go when Bucky tensed and leaped up, face falling back into that unreadable frown. His large hands fell open to the side, one still gently holding the washcloth.

Bucky didn’t look at him as he pulled his clothes back on, muttering that he’d let Becca know that dinner was cancelled and headed for the door.

The lift dinged open and then swished shut, but then paused ominously. Bucky’s awareness of reality was gradually returning, and he realised that he was in fact in the heart of Team Steve territory, a team which possibly had the Hulk on it and definitely had Natasha Romanov on it, and what the fuck had Bucky just done.

The silence in the lift actually seemed a little disapproving, Bucky thought, opening his eyes again.

‘Mr Barnes, if you don’t mind, Captain Rogers seems to be in some distress, and I am quite concerned about him.’ Bucky’s heart jolted. ‘He is not responding to me, and as you are the closest person, perhaps you could check on him before I call on anyone else.’ The lift door swished open expectantly, and Bucky rushed out.

 _Distressed?_ Steve was _distressed_? What did that even mean. Bucky knew he was being a bit of a jerk, running off like this (three times), but _distressed_?

Jarvis had obviously unlocked the door and Bucky barged back in.

Oh and his heart was going to break. Steve Rogers was sitting in the ruins of his coffee table, sobbing hands and arms bleeding where the wooden table had broken and sliced deep into his skin.

‘Steve, no.’ Bucky ran across the room and crouched down beside Steve. He gently reached out and touched those huge, shaking shoulders. Steve’s skin was cold and clammy, even though the room was warm.

‘Jarvis, can you turn the kettle on?’ Bucky asked, genuinely unsure if Jarvis could.

‘Of course, Mr Barnes. Done. Do you need any further assistance? Should I call someone else?’

Bucky paused for a moment, contemplating calling Sam, or Natasha, both of whom seemed to be good friends to Steve.

But Steve was leaning into Bucky’s touch, and whispering to him.

‘Bucky, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I did it again. I know you don’t, you don’t….’ he descended back into broken cries.

‘Oh no, Steve, no,’ Bucky carefully pulled Steve close, resting his head on Bucky’s chest while Bucky reached for a blanket that was lying across the couch. Probably a blanket, Bucky realised, that Steve had brought out here for Bucky.

Bucky wrapped the blanket around Steve as well as he could (maybe another situation where an extra arm would be a bit useful – trying to wrap crying supersoldiers up in a blanket cuddle). Steve leaned into Bucky’s chest and sniffled there. He really was cold, which Bucky thought was a bad sign.

He managed to guide Steve up out of the ruins of the coffee table and onto one of the modernist couches. Bucky thought it could soak up the blood from Steve’s already healing wounds, and then be thrown out. He didn’t want to ruin Steve’s nice, homey couch with any more bodily fluids.

Steve’s sobs subsided as he curled into Bucky, who kept muttering and shushing, wanting to head any more misplaced apologies off at the pass.

‘The kettle has boiled Mr Barnes, but unfortunately I am not corporeal enough to make Captain Rogers a cup of tea.’

‘Come on Steve,’ Bucky murmured in Steve’s ear, ‘let’s go into the kitchen together.’ Steve nodded and sniffed, apparently happy to go along with anything as long as he could continue to attach himself like a limpet to Bucky.

Quite frankly, Bucky wasn’t judging. He was the jerk who hadn’t checked in with Steve that Steve was okay, had taken his water and his wipe down and got out of there. So he managed to make two cups of sweet, milky tea one handed while Steve held onto his waste.

He contemplated getting Steve cleaned up, but given that the wounds were healing, decided getting some warmth and sugar into him was a priority. So they curled onto the hideous couch together again, sipping on their tea.

Gradually the fog seemed to clear from Steve’s eyes a little, the little frown line making a reappearance and a blush appearing on his cheeks.

Bucky tried to distract him. ‘Hey Steve, can I ask you a question?’

Steve nodded, looking confused.

‘Why were you wearing sweatpants that night you found me in the bar?’

Steve blushed redder. ‘I was out for a run, and I saw you walking ahead of me. I was going to say hello but you ducked into the bar first. I kept running for a while, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you, so I ran back and went into find you.’ Steve lowered his eyes. ‘I’m sorry if that’s a bit weird.’

‘Shit Bucky, I’m sorry about everything.’ Steve started to straighten up, looking aghast at his bloody skin, the coffee table. ‘What happened? Did you hear me?’

‘No, Jarvis told me you were distressed, and strongly encouraged me to come to your assistance.’

Steve put his hand over his face and mumbled something – probably sorry again.

‘No Steve,’ Bucky put down his tea and touched Steve’s hand, ‘You don’t need to be sorry. I’m sorry I ran away, I should have checked in with you.’

‘But I’m the one that hurts you,’ Steve croaked.

‘Steve, it doesn’t matter,’ Bucky ran his hand through Steve’s sticky hair. ‘It doesn’t mean you don’t get to need things too.’

Steve peeked out from between his fingers.

‘I want…’

Bucky nodded encouragingly.

‘I want to take care of you… afterwards. But…’ Steve took a deep breath.

Bucky nodded again, keeping his hand lightly pressed to Steve’s shoulder.

‘But I feel like you – like no one – wants me to be gentle.’ Steve’s voice dropped almost to a whisper.

Bucky was feeling a lot of emotions. Definitely some of them were urging him to run, but even he, Bucky Barnes, could not run from those blue, puppy dog eyes appearing in all their splendour as Steve’s hands dropped from his face and rested in his lap.

‘Steve, no, it’s not like that.’ Bucky struggled for a moment. _What is it like then, hey?_ ‘I just have some trouble with….’ Bucky thought back to some words Josh the nurse had thrown his way during their brief and unsuccessful liaison. ‘I’m not very good at letting people take care of me.’

Steve stared at him for a while. Bucky stared back and tried to bring all of his logistical powers to bear on the situation.

‘But I really like you Steve, and I actually think you do a great job of looking after me, when I let you, so – ‘ Bucky paused for a moment. ‘Since I really dislike you looking this sad, and I really want to make you feel good and maybe smile at me some more like you did yesterday, perhaps I could conceive of you looking after me as a way of me looking after you.’

Steve tilted his head slightly. The silence stretched.

‘Buck, I think,’ Steve rested his hand on top of Bucky’s, ‘I think you might have been spending too much time with the Legal Department.’

Bucky burst into surprised laughter, and Steve Rogers gave him a slow, sweet smile, that looked like it would taste like brown sugar melted onto hot oatmeal. Bucky guessed he’d just have to kiss him to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter grew quite a lot of plot and also conversation.


	4. Epilogue: A Very Important Dinner Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt like the story needed one more Steve POV chapter to really close things off. Just some fluffy, squishy times to round up.

‘You’re in a good mood,’ panted Sam. For some reason Sam still thought that if he got Steve to talk while they were running it would slow him down. Steve sometimes pretended it worked.

‘You know, just excited Bucky is coming over to meet everyone tonight.’ Steve felt an unfamiliar feeling of warmth and light in his chest, which earlier discussions with Sam had indicated was probably happiness.

Unfortunately for Sam it made his feet feel lighter and his legs feel stronger.

\-----

Bucky arrived at the dinner with his hair in a braid, his cheeks red from the cold outside. He wore a burgundy mohair jumper and black skinny jeans (which his thighs were doing their level best to bust out of).

‘You look really good, Bucky,’ Steve smiled and kissed him gently.

‘Hi James,’ Natasha nodded, wandering over with her hands around a huge mug, hair up in a ponytail. ‘Nice jumper.’

‘Same to you,’ Bucky nodded back. Natasha was wearing an enormous green able knit sweater that was like a dress on her.

Bucky narrowed his eyes. ‘Do you _knit_?’

Natasha smirked. ‘Of course. Both yarn and knitting needles are excellent weapons.’

Bucky snorted and nudged Steve. ‘She doesn’t know I was mean to you does she?’ he whispered.

‘Bucky, you weren’t _mean_ ,’ Steve whispered back. Bucky snorted again. But Steve really meant it. It wasn’t Bucky’s fault that Steve had come out of the ice and no one had asked him if he was okay for five years, and Steve had assumed that meant no one wanted him to talk about anything feelings adjacent, since apparently modern advances in psychology didn’t apply to enhanced supersoldiers from the 1940s.

‘She likes you, anyway,’ Steve said. Bucky looked sceptical but Steve was pretty sure. Natasha didn’t usually wear scrunchies in company. Natasha was probably the greatest gift Bucky had given him, anyway. When Steve had gone to her after meeting Bucky in the park, she had stared at him for a full two minutes.

‘You’re choosing _me_ to be the person you trust,’ she had asked finally. ‘ _Me_?’

‘You’re the smartest, strongest person I’ve met this century Natasha, and I’ve never see you support a plan that you didn’t trust, even if you’ve followed orders you didn’t like.’ He’d shrugged. ‘And all soldiers do that.

‘You’re so good at this type of strategy.’ Natasha had stared at him some more and finally muttered something about stupid trusting beefcakes. But Steve’s trust had transformed their relationship from distant professional respect to woollen sweater level intimacy.

‘So you turned down my arm,’ Tony narrowed his eyes at Bucky as he handed him a beer.

‘Yeah, I’m good.’ Bucky shrugged.

And Steve loved that about Bucky, how he inhabited his body as it was. Even though Bucky had let Steve see a little that Bucky found it harder to inhabit feelings.

‘There must be something you’d like an arm for?’ Tony insisted. ‘I know you don’t want to shoot people anymore, but I also don’t make weapons anymore.’

‘Okay, so maybe a few things,’ Bucky conceded, ‘But all in all, I can prop my book open with a heavy object, I shouldn’t be so defensive with my bod language anyway, and Steve seems happy with one-armed blanket cuddles.’ Steve was indeed very happy with any kind of Bucky-related cuddle, and squeezed hi, round the waist to demonstrate this.

‘You were also involved in Steve ruining a perfectly good couch.’

‘Whatever,’ Bucky was unrepentant. ‘That couch had it coming. It was bullying Steve’s couch. In fact, several items of furniture in that apartment have already been warned.’

‘The couch someone came to clean on Wednesday?’

Bucky just winked at Tony, and Steve was so happy he couldn’t even be bothered being angry or irritated, which would have been his normal go to emotions.

‘Sam,’ Steve poked Sam in the side. ‘I named both the feeling I was having and the feelings I would have otherwise had.’

‘Good work man.’ Sam clapped Steve on the shoulder, and then said a little louder. ‘The sacrifice of the coffee table was worth it if you guys managed to talk _and_ Steve learned he could have feelings other than angry, irritated and horny.’

‘The t-shirt I gave you is alright, though?’ Clint asked from the ceiling.

\-----

The warm feeling had first started around the time Bucky had leaned over to him and kissed him tenderly and gently, after swaddling Steve in a blanket and making him sugary tea.

Steve had still been stinging quite a lot from his encounter with the coffee table, and was definitely sweaty and messy and his face was covered with tears and snot, and not in a sexy way like when Bucky looked like that after Steve had fucked him senseless.

The part of Steve that was still small and defensive and socialised in the early 20th century was already pretty embarrassed by Bucky witnessing what Steve sometimes called in his head ‘an episode’.

But the rest of him was big and muscular and naked and wrapped in a blanket with the most beautiful man he had ever known was telling him it was okay for Steve to take care of him. The logic was a bit convoluted, but Steve was on top of it.

‘Could we, could we maybe clean up a little?’ Steve suggested shyly, the tingle in his fingers telegraphing the reawakening of his desire to pamper Bucky and tend to the hurts Steve had so delightingly inflicted on him.

‘Sure Stevie,’ Bucky stood, still holding onto Steve, and they walked to the bathroom together hand in hand.

Bucky started to run the bath while Steve, blushing, gathered together a wide range of bubble bath, oils, hair products and other unguents which he had been purchasing at various markets for the past few months whenever a scent caught in his sensitive nose and conjured an image of Bucky.

Bucky insisted on examining all of Steve’s wounds, rinsing him off in the shower cubicle and putting bandaids across any cuts that were still gaping a little.

‘It still hurts, doesn’t it?’ Bucky asked.

‘Sure,’ Steve shrugged. ‘But I was in pretty much constant pain for the first 21 years of my life, so on average I usually feel like I’m ahead.’

Bucky tutted disapprovingly as he undressed again.

They settled together into an Olympian mountain of bubbles, Bucky wriggling in between Steve’s legs and allowing him to massage a variety of shampoos, conditioners and treatments into Bucky’s hair.

‘This is making _you_ feel better right?’ Bucky mumbled between indecent groans.

‘Yes Bucky, this is making me feel really, really good,’ Steve whispered.

‘M’kay,’ Bucky sighed and moaned a little as Steve dug his fingernails into his scalp. ‘As long as we’ve got that straight.’

And Steve felt more comfortable in the now, in his body, than any other moment in this century or the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for coming with me on this journey! It's been my first Stucky fic, so you should know how much the kudos and the comments have meant to me. I know this is a massive fandom with a lot of fics, so I appreciate those who found this story in the forest, and enjoyed it - and even those that didn't.
> 
> I definitely have a few more fics in me now. I also wrote a short thing on my tumblr about my experience discovering and embracing fanfiction.
> 
> EDIT: A few comments said they would like to see more about their relationship. I'm considering writing a follow up, so if you have strong views on that let me know. I think it would be like them sorting stuff out, leaning to talk like adults, more sex, and some politics.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fic, so all comments welcome, particularly on whether I'm tagging right. I'm on tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/stuckyflangst, but I don't really know what I'm doing.
> 
> EDIT: For example, I actually spelt tumblr wrong when I first posted this. What can I say - I'm an old lady.


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